When Depression is in your bed

Holding Hope: When Your Relationship Feels Broken

• Trish Sanders, LCSW • Season 1 • Episode 9

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What if those recurring thoughts about leaving your relationship aren't actually telling you to leave, but instead signaling something deeper happening in your nervous system?

In this vulnerable exploration of relationship indecision, I share my own experience of contemplating divorce "more times than I could count" over twenty years of being in a relationship affected by depression. Through this journey, I've discovered that thoughts of leaving often serve as safety signals when we're feeling trapped or powerless—not necessarily indicators that ending the relationship is what we truly want or need.

Drawing on polyvagal theory and my therapeutic experience, I unpack how our nervous system state fundamentally impacts our relationship interpretation. When we're in fight-or-flight mode or collapsed in hopelessness, connection isn't biologically possible—we're simply trying to survive. This explains why even loving partners can perceive each other as threats and why making truly conscious decisions requires learning to regulate ourselves first.

I explore the complicated role of hope in relationships where depression is present, distinguishing between wishful thinking and grounded hope based on evidence of growth. Depression's emotional withdrawal makes relationship work tremendously difficult, not from unwillingness but from a genuine inability to access connection. The path forward involves learning to recognize "microscopic progress"—those tiny shifts that accumulate toward healing but often remain invisible until they've collected momentum.

Whether you're questioning your relationship's future or supporting someone who is, this episode offers compassionate insight into making decisions that truly align with who you are and what you want. Take a step today toward greater clarity and connection—movement toward joy is possible for everyone, even when depression is in your bed.

- If you are looking to take the first step towards improving your connection and communication with your partner, check out this FREE monthly webinar on "Becoming a Conscious Couple,".

- If you and your partner are ready to co-create the roadmap to the relationship of your dreams, join us for the next in-person "Getting the Love You Want" Weekend Couples Retreat!

For support in how to have deeper connections and better communication in the relationships that matter most in your life, follow the host, Trish Sanders on Instagram , Bluesky or LinkedIn.

Speaker 0:

Hello and welcome to the when Depression is in your Bed podcast. Are you still holding hope for your relationship, even though it's been hard for quite some time? If this applies to you, join me today for a compassionate conversation about hope, what may be under your indecision, and more that can help you make a conscious decision about your relationship that is truly in alignment with who you are, what you want and how you want to create your future. I'm your host, trish Sanders. Let's get started. The last episode that I recorded was about the seven questions that I developed that have helped me to make a conscious decision about whether I wanted to stay in my relationship or not, and so I shared those to help anyone out there who is struggling with that really difficult question of whether they wanna stay in their relationship or not. And the episode was by far the most difficult one so far for me to record, and it wasn't difficult so much because it was emotional for me. It was really because I had so much that I wanted to share about this topic, because I have really thought about ending my relationship so many times over the last 20 years, because depression has been present and because it's been so difficult to connect with my husband so much of the time, and even before we were married, we were together for six years before we got married and this dynamic was true then as well, and so I re-recorded the last episode so many times, which is not something I've done before, just because I really wanted to fine tune what my vision for the last episode was, to give you some clear steps that you could take, a clear outline of my own thought process and the questions that I found helpful when I was trying to make a decision about what to do about the future of my relationship and after I recorded that there's so much more that I want to share, and I do want to talk through my own process of going through those questions with you, and I do plan to do that.

Speaker 0:

But I realized that I was also sitting with other thoughts that weren't exactly questions, but important truths or what have become truths for me that have really supported me in my relationship journey, both in making a decision about staying in the relationship or not, but also how I've come to understand why I've thought so much about breaking up or getting divorced and what has been really important to me as I've figured out time and time again that I wanted to stay in the relationship. So I wanted to share those thoughts with you today, and if they resonate with you, then perhaps they will further support you being able to make a conscious decision about the future of your relationship. So the first thing that I sort of touched on already is that I have thought about leaving my relationship literally more times than I could even begin to count, and some of those were times when I was trying to determine do I want to move forward with ending this relationship, and that's where the questions that I shared in the last episode really came from. Beyond that, though, it feels like easily a million other times the question of should I just leave this relationship has come into my mind, and that has been both when I have been in a very hopeless state and, in polyvagal theory, I would say my nervous system was in a dorsal shutdown collapse state, and I just felt really hopeless about the future of our relationship. I felt really powerless to do anything about the relationship, and there was just sort of like ugh, it would just be easier to leave, feeling, or in times when I was extremely frustrated and more activated, like I don't need to put up with this anymore. I can go, you know, live a better life on my own, or I'll find somebody else and I'll have a better relationship with somebody else in the future and sort of like a more angry, usually, energy.

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And what I've come to realize about all of those times when divorce or breakup has come to my mind which it still comes to my mind occasionally now, as a matter of fact, just this morning it popped into my head and I'll tell you a little bit about how I process that but I've come to realize that the thought of leaving the relationship, in addition to being sometimes something very valid that I'm legitimately considering, it, also represents what I would say is a regulating cue of safety for me. And what that means is is that when I'm really revved up or really hopeless so that revved up, angry, sympathetic energy, that fight or flight energy, or again that dorsal, shut down, collapse energy, when I think about leaving the relationship, it makes me feel a little better sometimes because it feels like, oh, I have a choice, I'm not stuck, and that can help me to feel somewhat better. Right, if I feel powerless or if I feel angry at my husband, then it makes sense that, knowing that I'm not stuck in that situation can help me to feel better. But what I have noticed over time is that if I find some relief in thinking about leaving, I sometimes will go into a real emotional shutdown for my husband, like I won't say anything to him, necessarily I won't tell him that I'm thinking about leaving, but I'll sort of in my head just be like, okay, I don't have to put up with any of this, I don't have to care about any of this because I'm going to leave anyway. And my real emotional disconnect or pullback or withdrawal from my husband, even though in my own system I'm feeling some relief or some ease relationally, it's really detrimental because I'm disconnecting so completely from my husband. And so I have realized this over time and I've seen the impact and I see how me feeling relief sometimes in that specific way, can contribute to more problems in the relationship.

Speaker 0:

So I mentioned that just this morning. The thought of should I just get a divorce popped into my head. Now I recognize at this point that that thought pops into my head when I need to have a feeling of choice. I wasn't actually feeling this morning that I really wanted to divorce my husband and I knew that immediately. It was more like once that thought came in my head, I was like, oh, I must really be feeling stuck or frustrated right now. And I was in fact feeling stuck and frustrated, and so I took that as like a little signal to say well, I feel like I need to have choice and I know that moving towards connection and getting myself to a place where I can feel curious about my husband is helpful. It took me a few minutes because, you know, if I was feeling activated and triggered, I wasn't actually feeling very curious about my husband, to be honest, but I realized that. So I sort of worked on regulating myself enough to be able to get to a point where I was able to go to him and say, hey, are you open to having a little talk about how this morning's been going?

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I noticed in myself a resistance, a pulling back from wanting to talk to you, because I was feeling so frustrated and I really wanted to be more curious about what's happening for you so we can address this. And then eventually I did also share with him. You know, I noticed in myself that I was thinking about divorce, and I know for sure that that's not what I want and that that's just trying to help me feel safe, and so I share this because I think that it can be so easy to believe the thoughts that are in our head because they're in our head. But, as I've shared before and will absolutely share again, the interpretation that we're making in any given moment is because of the state our nervous system is currently in, and so if my nervous system is in a sympathetic state, which I definitely was in, and I had a bit of fight or flight feeling this morning, I want to get out of here, I want to get a divorce is one of the extreme versions of leaving a relationship right. I didn't just leave the house and go for coffee with a friend In my head, I was trying to get away from the relationship as far as I could get, which would be divorcing right, completely leaving the relationship, and so I share this, not only because it was really very powerful finding for myself, like I said, this kind of truth about me, that I frequently thought about divorce as a way of finding safety for myself and it wasn't always really what I actually wanted but also to share why, in the questions that I shared in the last episode, I invite you to think about the strengths of your relationship and I also invite you to work on your own self-regulation.

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And it might sound unfair to some people. I certainly know that for myself I have felt that it was unfair or I was being burdened yet again with having to do the relationship work. But the truth is is that when we're in that survival mode, when we're feeling hopeless or frustrated with the relationship and depression being present in the relationship absolutely contributes to that happening right when we're in that survival mode, it doesn't actually benefit us to be thinking about the positives of the relationship because we're trying to protect ourselves, we're trying to survive. So thinking oh, maybe this is not so dangerous can feel really threatening. Trying to anchor yourself in a more accurate awareness, like are there times when we really do still feel connected? And what does that relationship feel like?

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You know the statistic that I have often given. It's not based on any facts, it's just my feeling about my experience, but I usually have said that about 75% of the time or more, my husband and I are either, you know, somewhat disconnected to really unhappy or really miserable. And this is, like I said, an overall figure from the last 20 years. I don't have data to support. You know what has been happening and it's shifted over the last several years, which is wonderful news. But that left only about 25% of the time that we felt okay to good.

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So far more of the time we felt bad, and it might make sense for someone with that level of relational dissatisfaction to end a relationship and say, hey, if this relationship doesn't feel good over 75% of the time, I don't want to stay in this relationship. And that would be totally fine if that's what made sense to somebody. But for me that wasn't how it was, because I really tried to make conscious decisions and that's just not what made sense for me and I stayed in the relationship. But trying to hold on to the things that are positive, the reasons that you got together in the first place, that's really important so that you can really make a conscious decision about why you're leaving and not just make it from that survival place which, of course, if you're in a fight or flight mode attacking or running is what your nervous system wants to do. And if you're in a hopeless place, your nervous system wants to disconnect and withdraw and hide and be invisible and not put in any more work.

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And so the importance of regulating ourselves, which connects to that really big question which was question number six in the last episode of can you deeply love and care for yourself and still be in this relationship? And a lot of the time when depression is present, the answer is probably no. I can't deeply care and love myself and still be in this relationship, and that applies for me, like when I'm depressed, I'm not deeply caring and loving myself. That's absolutely true, and if my partner is depressed, historically I have been absolutely awful about prioritizing my own needs. There has been virtually no prioritizing of my own needs for so much of our relationship, which was my conscious or unconscious decision, depending on which moment. But being able to stretch into that, being able to take care of myself, allows me to be regulated a lot more of the time, and that is a true gift in how I show up in my relationship, as evidenced by this morning.

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You know, when the thought popped in my head oh my gosh, should I just get a divorce? I immediately was able to recognize I know that that's not what I want. This thought means I'm dysregulated, and so what's going on here and how do I regulate? And then I worked on that, and then I came to my husband, was able to talk with him about it, and so the important takeaway maybe that's what this is, some takeaways that I have found over the course of thinking about divorce or breakup so many times in my relationship is that a conscious decision really can only be made when you're in a regulated place, and being in relational conflict that's unresolved and especially if it's unresolved for long periods of time is usually a pretty dysregulating place. That's why the focus is what's really happening for me. You can more clearly see is this a relationship that feels good for me to be in or not? When you're regulated?

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And the other really important thing about being regulated is that our nervous systems communicate with our partner's nervous system without us even being aware of it, and if you're checked out like again for myself, I absolutely know that this is true there have been times in my relationship where I could see in real time that I knew I was really checked out of our relationship and I could see my partner respond in a negative way because he also felt threatened Because my nervous saying, you know, to his nervous system, even if I didn't say a word, hey, I'm not connected to you and I'm not available to you and I'm not putting in any effort to our relationship, or we're good at silent tension, and so when I was really angry and like activated and thinking about divorce, I could also could be communicating like, hey, I'm out of here and I could be very aggressive without saying a word, and that only hurts the relationship and really keeps us stuck in these patterns. And that's why it's so important to try to make the things that are unconscious more conscious, so we can really be aware and make a choice about whether it makes sense or not to stay in the relationship. And it's also connected, I think, to the questions that I asked in the last episode of are you willing to do the work of relationship and is your partner willing to do the work of relationship? And after recording it, I really thought about it and I realized that I also think that it's important to add are you willing to do the work of relationship with this person? And does it seem like your partner is willing to do the work of relationship with you? Because and I've had people say like, well, it's not that I'm not willing to do the work or I can do hard work, that's not the problem. So it's not a criticism. It's really like tuning in.

Speaker 0:

Does it make sense for you, and maybe you're willing to work really hard for a relationship, but maybe this just isn't the relationship that it really makes sense for you to work hard in. So it's not a question of are you willing or able to do this hard relationship work that everyone has to do at some point in their lives, because relationships in fact take work at some point. I mean, they shouldn't be constant work. You shouldn't be breaking your back all the time for the whole length of a relationship. But of course, challenges and conflicts come up and they need to be addressed.

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But perhaps there's just something about this relationship that it just no longer makes sense for you to do the work. Or, conversely, maybe you're kind of getting a vibe that your partner maybe is at a place where it doesn't make sense for them to do the work of relationship and it's not a personal thing either Like it's not. Like well, your partner is not good enough. He, she, they doesn't deserve me doing the work for them because there's something bad about them. Or there's something wrong with you that your partner is not willing to do the work for you because you're defective in some way or not good enough. Of course, you can maybe start to hear that this can really be an easy trigger for some of our unconscious stuff to come up really into the forefront. But it's just like you know what, given what has happened, given who we are, where we are, it just doesn't feel like this is a fit, and so it can feel very personal, of course, but I think that it's a very relevant, understandable question to ask yourself does it really make sense for me to do the work for this particular relationship? And the clearest choice that you can make is when you are regulated.

Speaker 0:

And I also want to add that, when it comes to doing the work of relationship, sometimes people really feel the burden of having to do all the work, and sometimes people won't take a step because they feel like their partner hasn't taken a step which can really lead things to unravel quickly. Because I usually tell people if you imagine the relationship garden I refer to that a lot If you're like, well, I'm not going to water the garden because my partner is not watering the garden, well, the garden is not going to grow right, somebody has to take care of it. And so, if you're able to take a step and you're not feeling resentful about it, then I highly recommend doing that, because it doesn't make sense for you to take 10,000 steps, you know, or 100 steps if your partner takes none. But what one step looks like for you may be different than what one step looks like for your partner. And so, again, from this really conscious place, if it feels like there's something in this relationship that you want to salvage, that you want to save, that you want to repair, that you want to see if it can grow, then you probably have to do something. Waiting around for your partner to do it or show that they're willing to do the work may not get the result you want, but you might be waiting to see what they have to offer. But then, on the flip side, they might be waiting for you to show that the relationship matters to you.

Speaker 0:

So it can really be complicated and there is a lot of very unconscious stuff and misinterpretation. Misinterpretation is huge about what keeps us stuck in these old patterns and can easily lead us to a place of feeling like we want to get out of the relationship, when maybe that really is what makes sense for you to leave the relationship. But maybe there's so much more going on under the surface that you just haven't understood clearly yet or that your partner hasn't understood clearly yet. I also want to talk about something that I think is extremely important and something that I have been very aware of in myself, and I see it commonly in other relationships. But I consider myself to be very good at holding hope, which, as a therapist, I think is probably an asset, because it is really quite easy most of the time for me to hold hope for those who come into my office Like I really believe that things can get better, even in today's climate in the United States.

Speaker 0:

In the larger world, there's a lot of things that can easily get people feeling hopeless or angry or anxious, and I totally understand all of those feelings and certainly have some of those feelings myself. And still I also hold a large hopefulness that we're going to figure this out. We're going to figure this out as a country, we're going to figure this out as a world, and a lot of the time in my relationship I also hold a lot of hope. I, of course, have felt hopeless as well in my relationship. I wouldn't be thinking about divorcing or breaking up if I didn't feel hopeless from time to time, but certainly in a regulated place I have a ton of hope, and sometimes that hopefulness can get conveyed inaccurately to the belief that everyone should stay together, and that is not how I feel at all. And so I want to just talk about hope for a moment.

Speaker 0:

And so there is a difference between holding hope for your relationship because you really wish the relationship would work out or holding hope because you know if your partner just did this thing, they would be better and your relationship would be better, and you don't have really any evidence to see that they're moving towards taking care of themselves in that kind of way. But you're just hoping. You're just're just wishing, and maybe from a very loving place, certainly. Maybe you see something amazing in them. Part of what allows me to hold hope so well so much of the time is because I do really believe that all humans are deserving of love and have beauty inside of them. I don't know if that sounds cheesy or something. I've had teenage clients tell me that what I say sounds cheesy, but it's really like my genuine belief.

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I think we all offer something really important and beautiful in this world and based on so many things, we end up feeling more different than more similar and we end up becoming polarized and taking sides and being against, rather than seeing our common humanity and being able to connect. And I think that this applies on a very grand macro scale in the world, and then I also think it applies in relationship just with your partner, that there is an absolute common humanity and there's a reason why you connected with your partner in the first place. There is something you saw in one another that was delightful and joyful and beautiful and attractive physically, but like who you are was attractive to your partner and who your partner was was attractive to you Like magnets pulled towards each other, right, that kind of attraction. And so that's there. And if you hold hope because that's there, of course that makes sense. However, that kind of hope is, in fact, different than holding hope because you have seen things in yourself, in your partner, in your relationship, that lead you to being able to hold that belief of saying, like you know what things have been hard and I'm seeing effort, I'm seeing curiosity, I'm seeing something happening, and I mentioned this in the last episode about looking at your partner's willingness.

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It can be hard to determine because sometimes you're not literally seeing the progress that's happening in yourself or in your partner and I refer to microscopic progress that so much growth and healing happens in these teeny, tiny ways. And in polyvagal theory they actually talk about micro moments and how our nervous system grows and stretches through these tiny, little, mini micro moments of a new experience. And so those little microscopic change moments can sometimes be invisible to the naked eye until many of them happen, and then you can actually observe them. So, again, it's a tricky phenomenon and it takes being able to self-regulate, which is definitely not always easy to do, in order to be able to be in a place where connection is even possible, because when we're in a survival mode, connection is not possible. When we're angry and frustrated and in that sympathetic fight or flight place which also again could include like let me just get out of this relationship, forget about my partner, it's not worth it or if we're in that dorsal shutdown, collapsed, hopeless place, we feel like we could just give up on our relationship.

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Connection is not actually available to us in those states, because our only goal is to survive and connecting, especially if what is available to connect to seems like a threat. Right, but even if your partner is in a loving place, if you're in a sympathetic or dorsal place, if your nervous system is in a survival state, you are still likely to interpret your partner as a threat. And the reverse is true. If your partner is in a survival state, even if you're coming at them with kindness and love, they are looking through I've talked about those depression goggles, fight or flight goggles. They're seeing you through the lens of their nervous system state and they are likely to perceive you as a threat, and so, again, this contributes to more conflict and more questioning of should I even be in this relationship? Even when I try, and I come to my partner with love, they don't react well. And so there's a lot here, and this is why I started this podcast because I've learned an awful lot through my relationship challenges, and I really want to share it with you, because I myself have always known that I love my husband and I've always been very clear that he has felt like he loves me. And yet we have had so much hardship over the years and I figured out some things that have been really helpful to me, and that's why I'm sharing them with you.

Speaker 0:

I do want to just say two more things, and one is specifically about depression and how that stuckness, that collapse, being emotionally withdrawn and feeling like connection is hopeless. It's not even an option. Option it's not available to you can really get in the way of a partner doing their work and, again, if they're so stuck so much of the time they're unavailable for you and then you're not in a relationship with them right, and that's what it can feel like they're unreachable, you can't connect with them, they're not there for you. If that's happening a lot of the time, then maybe it does make sense to end the relationship. That's really a very individual decision. It's also possible that they don't understand what's happening for them.

Speaker 0:

There's so much what I would call sort of misinformation or maybe misleading information about depression that there's a lot of message about hopelessness and that either you have to be on medication for the rest of your life, which for some people might be true, but it might not be true for everybody and it's also not always the only option for people. There's also so much shame and it can feel so horrible to want to feel better and not know the path there. It is not your responsibility, for you to help your partner find their path to wellness. But if you're in a place where it still makes sense for you to be in your relationship, there are potentially ways to support your partner in them being able to have space to figure out what they need. So it's not you figuring out what they need, but there are ways to support creating that environment where growth and healing is possible, which I will talk about more at other times. I just wanted to really say that someone being depressed can really get in the way of them doing the work, or you seeing them doing the work, which does not mean that there's not actually a willingness underneath, that they might very much want to do the work, but they might just feel powerless to do it. So again, there's a lot to consider there.

Speaker 0:

And then the last thing I just want to mention before I wrap up for today is that I talk a lot about consulting a therapist as you're going through this, or a wellness practitioner or a healer or a trusted friend, and I just want to highlight how important it is to choose somebody who is going to actually support your process in trying to figure out if you want to stay in a relationship or if you want to end it, and if you choose to stay, what options are available to you? Because it can be really easy to go to a friend or a family member and vent and complain about your relationship and they may just get right on board with you. And, similarly, having the thought of like, oh, I want to get divorced, sometimes that can give you a momentary sense of relief. Venting to a friend might give you a cue of safety. I feel heard, I feel listened to, I feel understood, I feel validated, and that can feel really good.

Speaker 0:

But it can also be detrimental to the relationship because then you know, you might be really fired up and more angry than when you started the conversation, or maybe you walk out feeling even more hopeless than when you started the conversation and neither of those will support growth your own growth or the relationship's growth. And I remember actually, when, shortly after my husband and I got separated, I found something somewhere I honestly don't remember where it was, but it was something that said something to the effect of never talk badly about your partner to anyone ever. And I was like, oh no, like gosh, I have definitely made some missteps here. I've vented to a lot of people about my husband and it actually felt almost impossible for me to think about not doing that, like well, what should I do then? Do I just not tell anybody? Do I just not talk to anybody about how difficult this relationship is? But it also resonated with me and I understood.

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And if you can't talk to your partner, if communication directly with your partner is not available at the moment, getting support and often that might be couples therapy or couples workshops that I run, which is what we talk about how to communicate effectively with your partner those are the skills that we share so get some support in being able to talk to your partner directly so that you can problem solve within the relationship. But if that's not available yet, choose people like a therapist or somebody who can kind of remain neutral and be a container for you to process, not that you're venting and complaining, but that you're really sharing your own experience. You're thinking about what could be helpful in the relationship for yourself. What does deep self-care and deep self-love look like, and somebody who won't fuel your fire or support your hopelessness, which is tricky, but they definitely exist out there. So I hope that these takeaways that I have learned over the last two decades feel helpful to you in some way. I would love to hear about what you connected with and I look forward to sharing more about this really difficult and important topic with you in the next few episodes.

Speaker 0:

As our time comes to a close, I ask you to keep listening for just a few more moments, because I want to thank you for showing up today and I want to leave you with an invitation as you hit stop and move back out into the world on your own unique wellness journey In order to move from where you are today to the place where you want to be. The path may seem long or unclear or unknown, and I want you to know that if that seems scary or daunting or downright terrifying or anything else, that is totally okay. Know that you do not have to create the whole way all at once. We don't travel a whole journey in one stride, and that is why my invitation to you today is to take a step, just one, any type, any size, in any direction. It can be an external step that can be observed or measured, or it could be a step you visualize, taking in your mind. It can be a step towards action or towards rest, or connection or self-care, or whatever step makes sense to you.

Speaker 0:

I invite you to take a step today, because getting to a place that feels better, more joyful, more connected than the place where you are today is possible for everyone, including you, and even when depression is in your bed. If today's episode resonated with you, please subscribe so you can be notified when each weekly episode gets released. I encourage you to leave a review and reach out to me on social media at trishsanderslcsw. Your feedback will help guide future episodes and I love hearing from you. Also, please share this podcast with anyone who you think may be interested or who may get something from what I have shared. Until the next time we connect, take care of yourself and take a step.